the meeting of our committee and the hagel nomination of the scheduled at 230 will begin at 2:45 p.m. because we have two votes at 2:15 p.m. two votes at 2:15 p.m. this afternoon. after consulting with senator inhofe, we are going to begin our meeting this afternoon at 2:45 p.m. instead of 2:30 p.m. i've asked everybody to vote early so that we can begin promptly at 2:45 p.m. this afternoon. now, i'm going to call on senator graham, then i will go to senator shaheen. senator graham? >> thank you, gentlemen, thank you for coming. thank you for having this hearing. i can't think of a better topic to be talking about. can you tell us about this is? >> senator, i have a degree in english from duke university, the answer is yes. i don't know what it's going to take. maybe it gets everyone's attention, from a navy perspective, if sequestration is implemented, will he have less naval bases? >> well, senator, that falls under the base closure realignment process. >> how many ships will they have? >> if sequestration is enacted over the nine-year period, we anticipate the fleet shrinking by ap